


Where have you been all my life?

by Peasantlock



Category: LotR to an extent, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, this is not a happy AU of any sort read at own risk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peasantlock/pseuds/Peasantlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin's life and death in snippets</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where have you been all my life?

"The halfing?" Thorin chokes out upon waking. "He's here" gandalfs voice 'quite safe' his mind echoes, but the actual words aren't there. Kili resolutely staring at some spot on his blanket, Fili meeting his eyes and giving a minute shake of his head. Thorin's world shatters like glass to the chant of 'long live the king.'

Bilbo is buried close enough to Mirkwood's border in the soft soil to be covered in flowers and grass where on the desolation there grows none.

For sixty years he commands the throne with studied ease and efficiency, he was born for this, he was groomed for this. If he rarely leaves his room if not for meetings and actual ruling few dare comment to his face. They have company dinners and there are no empty chairs but he stares as if there were sometimes. The silence is deafening to him. His lone heart and the odd cheer of the others out of tune with each other.

After sixty years a dark rider stands before the gate to ask the location of the dead in hissed guttural growls. He calls for the wizard, those riders are not unknown to the khazad, and Gandalf answers. In a room designed to swallow sound they speak in hushed tones still about things Thorin would rather forget and remember with the clarity of the moment the memories were created. Yes bilbo had a ring, no it's not here. It was golden, he would not keep something of gold yet if it was precious to Bilbo let Bilbo keep it, so with him it rests. No one knows where he is buried save those who buried him, the company.

In the wee hours of the morning they finally arrive to do the unthinkable and Thorin's hands will shake at the mere shadow of it for all time to come.

He aches all over for doing it and retrieves the ring with bated breath and trembling limbs to drop it in Gandalfs little pouch. Dirt under his nails and fingers stiff he shuffles the soil back like pulling a blanket over a sleeping figure and when it is finally done he lays down upon the newly softened soil and heaves with dry sobs wracking through his old bones.

Not a year after he abdicates his throne to Fili and heads to the shire with intent to seek his peace. Wondering why he has not done so sooner all the way. The road stretches out so clearly before him now he is rooted by the whiplash of memory from how he ever got lost the first time around. A tugging on his sleeve jars him out of that night and the song of the crickets. "Are you lost mister dwarf?" a young voice says.

Baggins, the young lads name is Baggins.

Perhaps it is fate he thinks as he latches on to the youngling and fights with more fire than he has posessed in a long time for the right to raise him better.

A council is held and Fili has asked him to come so naturally Frodo too wishes to go, though Thorin would warn him off it for what it's called.

"I will take it!" rings out clear like a bell and Thorin laments for the third time in his life underestimating the chivalry and kindness of a Baggins.

Hands trembling he presents the shirt to the second hobbit he has come to care for and hopes beyond hope that it will keep him safe. The rest is worrying and waiting. More news a blow to the fragile glass sculpture he calls a heart than not.

When it is called to battle he finds his old bones gone too creaky to take a stand and he cries for it.

He holds on long enough for Frodo to take his place to Valinor, where he himself does not wish to go, before passing away during the morning smoke among the falling leaves of autumn in Imladris on the bench he is certain Bilbo would've loved.


End file.
